The Liberal Advantage

Nah. Didn't happen.

 

Sure, I bet you "mastered" it in a HS shop class... Probably with a plethora of certifications too...

 

One can google pretty much a majority of his unsupported claims and discover his fabrication skills.

 

Actually I did spend an entire Summer working in a metal fabrication shop down near the docks. Cutting, welding, fitting, you name it, I did it. Worst job was on an old Whaler because everything was covered in grease that stank to high heaven and needless to say I was given the worst part of that job.

Everything I did was inspected by a qualified journeyman and it all passed so no, I don't have any "plethora of certifications" but I do have real world experience.

 

OK, your statement about how learning to weld is so easy makes me suspect your accounting of it. There is much more to it than a "steady hand". Welding with electricity is usually referred to as arc welding.

 

I look at the states that seem to be liberal- and while I see progressive ideas being tried, I also see crackpot idea that are obviously the result of tunnel vision, and I see pitifully poor management, especially of finances.

One can start a business- and survive on expansion alone, losing money all the time. That is a lot like what I see in the states you think are outperforming- a disdain for the future. The problem is that this works kind of like a ponzi scheme, in that it relies on something inevitably unreliable to sustain it. Sooner or later, like the old chickens coming home to roost- the inevitable happens, and the whole illusion of performance goes bankrupt. Now the larger such an entity is, the longer it can sustain itself in that way. Something the size of California can do that for many generations, thus convincing people who have never seen it any other way think it can go on forever. Today- California IS technically bankrupt, and severely so. Yet, they continue with jokes like the cow-fart laws, and enormous financial risks like the bullet train that has spiraled out of control and they can't afford to finish. Some of the citizens don't know it yet, and their government has been scrambling for years to avoid facing it, taxing businesses more and more, while still spending like there was no limit. At the same time passing incredibly stupid laws both for perceived good and for emotional gratification. When the state's finances collapse- they will expect the rest of the nation to bail them out, and refuse to accept that the problem was totally home grown.

We have something like a turtle and hare story here. The liberals fail to recognize the race is an endless marathon, not a sprint, and they burn through things like the future would always be the same as the past.

I don't know when some of these "outperforming" states will collapse, but that is an inescapable reality. California leads the race to that. Many great companies have located there, knowing state management was poor, but wanting to have the advantage of the natural assets of California to help attract the best people. But rather than manage their great resources well, California's liberals abuse their prime industries- and drive them away, thinking it's not really their fault. Corporations move to Texas, Arizona, other places, because California has been both killing them with taxes and regulations, and preventing their growth all the same time. One company spent 10 years trying to get approval for a new plant in California, and finally gave up. In two years, they had a plant built and operating in Arizona- and moved out. You simply can't get milk and meat from the same cow and never feed it. That is pretty much the way they have treated their prime revenue sources- and they are losing them at an increasing pace. They are losing people too. If you look at the population, the total numbers aren't changing much, but who those people are is changing. The wealthy, the creative, the productive people are leaving- being replaced by illegal immigrants, and homeless coming for the liberal benefits and tolerance of public pooping as well as the weather. It's like the NY Yankees abusing their star players and running them off, then bringing in third-string school kids in their place and thinking nothing will change. Liberals look ahead- with blinders. The chickens are coming home to roost, just a matter of time until the great liberal experiment kills itself. California will probably be first- but certainly not last.

 

Electric arc welding is the full term and it is done by using a steady hand to hold the spark gap at a constant distance while moving the shortening rod depositing the weld across the seam to ensure that it even.

Gas welding requires both hands to be steady because you are holding the blue tip of the torch at the seam while using the other hand to feed the rod in at a constant rate.

Yes, I did learn how to do both and when I was on my back in the bowels of the whaler welding the underside of the new boiler bracket in place covered in stinking grease in temperatures well over 100C inside the hull the biggest problem I had was keeping my hand steady while trying not to end up slipping into the fetid water below me and electrocuting myself.

 

I think you meant to say SMAW which by the way is by no means the only form of arc welding. There is also MIG and TIG and FCAW <--- these being most common. "Spark gap " is known as arc length or distance.

 

We are talking about 5 decades ago and it was all that was needed to get the job done. Yes, your job has become largely automated like a great many other manual skills that are no longer necessary in manufacturing.

 

You were working in temperatures well over 100C?

 

You are being funny and terminology matters. Most any jackleg can stick stuff together but a skilled fabricator is a world of difference. Anyone who thinks human welders are now obsolete is showing a great deal of ignorance on the subject.

 

And evidently, the ground clamp was underwater! It's a wonder he survived!

 

More like some miracle. No one can survive in temperatures over 100C.

 

That is true. I guess his "mechanical arts" class didn't teach that.... Maybe a "Home Economics" course would have been better. lol

 

No you didn't.

 

Ironically, an “arc” was first produced by Humphrey Davy, who also was a poet, commentator on religion, and pioneer of using “laughing gas” in anesthesia. He regularly expounded on religious themes during his presentations. His ideas on fusing materials with friction heat came from a Quaker mentor who showed him how to fuse pieces of ice by rubbing them together.

 

The “Father of the computer”, Charles Babbage was a committed Christian who wrote extensively on the compatibility of Christianity and the scientific method.

His concepts on both hardware and programming, though improved upon by others, have borne out to be correct. Today, the OP is standing on the shoulders of such innovators. Yet, there is either a willful ignorance of the beliefs of these pioneers, or knowingly false narratives are being foisted upon us. Or perhaps, a combination of the two, making such threads even more ironic.

 

Bravo, well stated!!!

Conservatives have lost the Culture War and now all they have is tribalism and hate. Their apathy and myopic views are anti ethical to democracy.

 

Let me sum it up:

LiberalManGood!

ConservativeManBad!

 

The trick to welding and cutting underwater is keeping yourself outside of the football shaped current field between the positive and negatives. I've cut pipeline with a slitting torch, running 100PSI oxygen and 200A DC through magnesium alloy core rods. Works great, you don't feel a thing- provided you never get in that field. If you start to, you will feel it and the chrome plating on your breathing regulator will begin to break down....

 

Never did underwater, big money.

 

My class in HS was called "machine shop".

 

So maybe it was first manufactured, packaged and marketed to white people in Boulder. Same with soy milk. The organic farming movement has long been a Boulder thing

 

I once designed a rather complicated, yet small object made of stainless steel. It turned out that it was just too expensive to machine. Yet if I could break it down into three pieces it could be machined cheaply, but that meant welding the pieces together to make a complete part. The problem was that inside the part were channels where water would flow. Being that the parts were small and the material so difficult to weld, it was easy to damage the channels, and ruin the part when welding. I went around town, to every welding shop trying to find someone who could do the welding. Most told me straight up they couldn't do it. And the ones who tried failed.

I had gone to maybe 20-30 shops and found no one who could weld my pieces. I was starting to think I would have to go to an aerospace quality shop that would charge a fortune. Yet I kept hearing people mention a guy named Brown. It was said he was the best welder in town. He wasn't in the yellow pages and no one seemed to know where his shop was. After some asking around I finally discovered who Brown was. When I went to his shop, there were maybe half a dozen hippie/biker looking dudes, sitting around outside on old cars seats, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. Music blaring on the loudspeakers. There were piles of tubing and rows of motorcycle frames and parts, in various stages of completion.

I was weary at first, as this seemed to be a guy who built motorcycles. I showed him my parts, and without hesitation told me it would be a cinch. He even offered to do it for half of what I was expecting to pay. He then showed me his welder. It was the largest welder I have ever seen. It was as big as a small truck.

Anyhow the samples he did were perfect and we struck up an agreement. He thought he was making a killing on what he thought was little more than child's play, and we were getting the best made parts in town.

If I remember right, the technical problem was the heat to weld had to be extremely localized, so as not to deform the part. Turns out, as I've been told, the best way to do that is with massive current, over a short period of time. And it takes a really big welder to do that.

 

Wrong again. The earliest tofu company in the USA, Wo Sing & Co.,It was located at 708½ Dupont St. in San Francisco. They made both fermented and regular tofu.
(1878 )
This is getting hysterical. I can't stop laughing.

Care to take another shot at it?